Dear Magda, I heard you speak at a conference recently. If I understood you correctly, you believe that infants from a very early age are very active, move a lot and do not need to be exercised. How do you feel about special classes for babies, such as "Baby Swim", "Baby Dance", "Baby Gym", and "Baby Dynamics"? Almost all my friends take their babies to such classes and seem to enjoy them very much.

Dear Parent, You understand me well, but I also know how pressured parents are by all the magazines, the media and by other parents to do something to stimulate learning in their infants. Your question reminds me of a lovely mother who came to my class recently and who has attended several baby stimulation classes, but continues to question if her baby needs it or if she needs it and if it's okay. Of course, things are not that simple. We have to ask what is there for the parent and what is there for the baby in these classes. It is true that sensory motor development happens as the first stage of the intellectual learning of babies. In many cultures, people have been led to think that unless infants are taught they don't learn. Under the guise of teaching has come tight swaddling, being tied to boards, being carried in slings and pouches, placed in infant seats, jumpers or walkers, being immobilized as well as exercised.

The fact that all "normal" children learn to walk clearly shows their amazing resilience. There is evidence, however, that gross motor development happens naturally when an infant has plenty of space to move in a safe, age-appropriate and challenging environment. Nowadays, people find it hard to believe that this uninterrupted absorption is leading to learning.

However, if you watch babies who are allowed to move freely and without interference you will see that they learn to move gracefully and securely and, through endless repetition and practice, they become well-balanced. These kinds of sensory experiences are learning, and are a great pleasure for a parent to watch! A father who once asked me whether he should exercise his baby or take him to a gym class was intrigued when I suggested that he imitate all his baby's movements for about one hour and decide then if his baby needed an additional workout.

After the recent conference, Dr. Pikler and I visited one of those "Baby Swim" classes. There were about fifteen mothers and a few fathers there with babies from four to eight months. Although the instructor explained that the purpose of the class was not to teach the infants how to swim, but simply to help them learn to enjoy the water, and reminded the parents not to force their babies, he proceeded to instruct with, "Now jump up. Take them under the water. Make the baby kick." The speed, the excitement, the up and down, didn't take into account the babies' or parents' timing. To me it felt like an army drill. It made me increasingly uncomfortable to see the delighted smiles of the parents. For them, the excitement and fun seemed contagious. The babies, however, looked scared and surprised. Some were bewildered. At times a few cried. Yet the parents kept saying, "Isn't it fun?" Only one mother, of an apparently exhausted baby, said, "I think that is enough for you," and picked the baby up and rested her on the side of the pool.

All these parents were loving, caring people. Yet they listened to the instructor and reinforced each other with, "Aren't the babies having fun?" They neither looked at the babies' faces nor seemed to see or read their children's feelings. What did these babies really learn or experience? The parents enjoyed being together and needed to reinforce each other in their belief that they were doing the right thing for their infants. They wanted to believe that their babies were learning. They needed to feel confident. My advice is, to gain confidence, look at your baby. Respond to your baby. Enjoy what your baby is doing right now. If you want to give your infant a positive experience, take the clues from your own observations. While these classes offer support and companionship to parents, the babies, in order to attend these classes, must be interrupted from their natural rhythms of sleep and play, then restricted in infant seats while in the car. They are exposed to a barrage of people and activities and expected to conform to an externally imposed curriculum. I recommend that parents form small groups in which their babies are the "actors'' and "script-writers." The parents can then watch, learn, and enjoy.

I was pregnant at the time I first heard about RIE at a conference given by you and Dr. Pikler. I know it was the best possible preparation for my baby and myself. And now, when I compare Rachel (at 15 months) to other children, she is so much more peaceful than they are and she plays happily for hours by herself. Yet, sometimes, I have doubts. All around me I see parents taking their babies to classes and teaching them at home and I wonder if we might be missing something. There are so many programs and so many people pressuring me to do this or that with Rachel. I look at her and I can see that RIE is right. But why is it so hard for me to explain to others what I believe? Or, why can't they hear me? Confused Parent

Dear Parent,

To start where your letter ends, how well I understand your problem. All my classes, lectures, articles, movies, every Educaring keeps trying to explain what RIE is all about. So many parents and professionals have asked for more guidelines on how to put the RIE method into practice and how to explain it to others, I would like to present them again here.

What an infant needs - what every human being wants - is to experience the full undivided attention of a parent or other significant person. But nobody can pay attention all of the time. What makes parenting so difficult - so much of a grind - is the ongoingness of it. To be always needed, always available, can drain any parent's energies.

The natural time to be wholeheartedly with your child is the time you do spend together anyway - the time while you care for your baby. Think of that time as special; take the telephone off the hook before you intend to feed, bathe, or even diaper your baby, and tell your child, "I'm going to take the phone off the hook so nobody will disturb us!" This will create intimacy. After such intimate moments your baby will be pleased to explore by herself if you have prepared the proper environment.

Every infant needs an absolutely safe environment, one in which he can move freely according to his gross-motor abilities. A crib is all right for the first two and one half months, a playpen until about five months. At that young age infants are not locomotive - cannot move far away from where we put them - so they do not find these small places restrictive. On the contrary, it is their familiar place with their familiar objects in it. Ideally, the crib and the playpen are in the child's own room. The room should be within hearing distance from where the mother is (kitchen, bathroom, etc.).

At about five to six months, the child can spend increasingly more time on the floor of her room. As the rest of the house is usually not as safe, it helps to have a gate. If a whole room is not available, a part of a room should be safely partitioned. Interestingly, parents often feel sorry for a baby who is allowed to freely move about, can manipulate and explore in his or her own room, while they do not feel sorry for a baby trapped in an infant seat which is placed on the kitchen table!

Ideally children should have a duplicate crib and a playpen out-of-doors to spend many hours napping and playing safely outside without the parents having to watch them every minute. These safe environments not only allow the child to spend uninterrupted time exploring and learning, but it also allows the parents to pursue their own projects. When the time comes to provide care again, both infant and parent can enjoy it fully without pressure.

The quality of your interactions will also improve if you learn how to observe and understand the personality of your child. To peacefully sit in the room while your child is doing her own thing, without wanting to play with her, teach her, or care for her - just be available to her - will make you much more sensitive to your child's needs, her tempo and style. Try to observe what interests her, how she handles frustration, solves little problems. Allow your child to learn about you. Be genuine and honest in your interactions. You do not need to put on a sweet smile when you are awakened in the middle of the night. You are sleepy, so act sleepy.

Accept the feelings of your baby, positive as well as negative. Do not try to stop the crying with a pacifier. Do not tickle a sad baby. You may save your grown-up child many dollars spent on therapies where they have to relearn how to cry and how to show feelings. And trust your baby. Trust her initiations, her choices, her motivation and innate desire to learn. Why teach anything to a child that she would learn all by herself? Why cram her head with knowledge unrelated to her interests and readiness?

What makes parenting difficult is the conflict of needs (father wants to leave, baby clings and cries; mother wants to sleep, baby wakes and cries). Parents are torn between contradictory advice. Some advise, "You, the parent, have the right to live your own life and the baby has to adjust to it." This usually means that parents take the infants wherever they go - shopping, visiting, movies. The babies' biological timetables are messed up, they become appendages of their parents' lives. According to other advice, the mother should give up everything just to serve the baby. Seldom are guidelines given for mutual adaptation. The RIE guidelines can help you to be sensitive to both your baby's and your own needs.

Interested in learning more? Please visit RIE's web site. With thanks to David Vigliotti of Little Learners Lodge in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, for permission to use the first three and the fifth photos to illustrate the basic principles. Little Learners Lodge is a RIE Certified Childcare Center.